If someone was to join us today, what would you tell them about tricks to success?
I've thought of ten things:
1. Set attainable, realistic goals
2. Take a before picture.
3. Buy a scale.
4. Gather a team of supporters
5. Be ready to be different
6. Track your calories.
7. Eat breakfast. Every day.
8. Don't make drastic changes.
9. Drink water. Lots of water.
10. Don't use food as a reward for "good behavior."
1. Set attainable, realistic goals:
Crazy workout plans and crash diets just don't garner garner success. Most times, when you are making drastic changes in your life, it is best to make them gradually. If your goal is to be healthier, then weight loss will be a side effect of that. But when your only goal is to lose a lot of weight, you aren't making life changes that will be permanent.
Setting small-term goals along your ultimate path will yield major motivation as you go along. Maybe it's fitting into your skinny jeans or being able to wear shorts without constantly tugging down the inseam. Maybe it's being able to run a 5k or just walk a mile. It doesn't matter. When you see yourself hit each goal, you feel invincible.
2. Take a before picture.
I wish I had done this. Instead, I took my "before" after losing 20 pounds. It's hard for me to see the changes in my body and I still see "Fatalie" when I look in the mirror. I wish I had a way to spot the changes at a glance.
3. Buy a scale.
When I was scale-less for a month, I floundered, lost, with no idea how I was doing. It's important not to become obsessed with the scale, but if you are trying to lose weight, there really is no other way to track it. You have to weigh yourself! Everything I've read says to do this routinely, but not obsessively. I weigh myself once a week because my plan is to lose a pound each week.
There was a long time in my life when I argued scales were monsters. I refused to weigh myself unless I was at the doctor. For years I didn't know how much I weighed. Which means I didn't know just how overweight I truly was. The scale isn't the enemy! When treated right, a scale is your teammate and will help you stay on track.
4. Gather a team of supporters.
Whether it's a blog group like 50n50 or something like Sparkpeople, Weight Watchers, or a church group, having supporters, cheerleaders and competitors is very important. Accountability is important and a network like the Ladies in Weighting provides that. When I don't lose my pound each week, I feel like I let my girls down and I work extra hard the next week to make up for it.
5. Be ready to be different.
This has been really hard for me. I was ready to be skinny and ready to be healthy, but I honestly wasn't ready to lose weight. For one thing, my mental image of myself isn't changing as it should. That holds me back at times when motivation is hard to find.
Also, bluntly put, losing weight isn't cheap. I'm not talking about buying low fat (often a trap, so be careful!), but losing weight means your clothes don't fit and that means you have to shop for more. Sure, you can thrift-store it, but is someone else's stretched out clothes really a good guide for your new size?
6. Track your calories.
This is the thing that annoys most people - mainly because it is a drastic change to your routine. But it truly is key! They average person burns 10 times their weight in calories (their RMR). If you weigh 200 pounds, you are probably burning 2000 a day (more if you're active!). To lose one pound, you need to burn 3500 calories. In order to do this in a week without adding exercise to your day, you need to limit calorie consumption to 1500 calories. The only way to know if you are doing this is to track those calories!
Working out doesn't mean you can skip this either.Working out increases your appetite and makes you think it's ok to eat more because you "worked it off." But if you aren't tracking, how do you know you aren't eating too much more?
Also, as you lose weight, your RMR lessens. You burn fewer calories in a day. This means your daily allotment decreases as you lose weight and you need to track as you lessen what you're allowed. Of course, as this happens you need to increase your exercise, I honestly just can't stress how important it is to know what you take in and what you are burning in order to plan your meals.
7. Eat breakfast. Every day.
I actually credit breakfast as the reason I lost the first 10-15 pounds. Eating breakfast every day was the most major change I made in my life. I honestly rarely ate breakfast on weekdays. Coffee was all I had until I was ravenous at lunchtime. Basically, skipping that meal was starving my body. When I finally did feed it, my body hoarded all the calories, preparing itself for the next famine.
Nowadays, I make myself a pretty big breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon bits and oatmeal or cereal. I average 240 calories, but am not starving at all when lunch rolls around. I don't engorge myself on bad things at lunch, and I'm generally more energized for the day.
8. Plan each meal.
Because I eat a significant breakfast and am faced with a limited budget and really bad food choices for lunch I find that packing my lunch each evening helps me plan the day. I put the foods into my calorie tracker on Sparkpeople.com and use the remaining calories form my daily budget to plan a suitable dinner. THEN, I use leftovers from that dinner for the next day's lunch (usually more than the amount I ate for dinner because lunch should actually be a more substantial meal than dinner - I know, mind-blowing - because we use the calories to finish out our day).
9. Drink water. Lots of water.
I hate water. But, I have noticed that when I consistently drink 8 glasses of water a day, I consistently lose weight. As much as it pains me to say this, drinking water is very important in all of this.
10. Don't use food as a reward for "good behavior."
Rewards are important. Just don't let them derail you! Just this week, I almost did it. I wanted a doughnut badly, so I almost let myself have one as a reward for losing 5 pounds in one week. Luckily, reason prevailed. I don't advocate depriving yourself of life's pleasures. If you want a doughnut, go get yourself a doughnut (deprivation will just make you bitter!). But make sure you put it in your calorie tracker and adjust your other meals accordingly.
Instead of using that doughnut as a reward, however, go buy a new shirt! Or get a pedicure! Buy yourself a yoga mat or something fun that will also add to your healthy habits. Sure food feels good in the moment, but that reward will only make you feel bad later - and derail the success you're celebrating. You should feel proud following a milestone, not guilty.
